tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52799657308090220402016-09-07T21:32:26.937-07:00Mental Health Matterstechnically speaking, I'm living the dream. survived med school. now a naturopathic physician specializing in treating mental health concerns. I'm a licensed doctor. in reality, I'm still in the process of learning to be a physician with soul. this blog is dedicated to my struggles to this end.Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-51243232503822386482013-04-24T10:47:00.000-07:002013-04-24T10:48:22.412-07:00untitled<br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">homeopathy, my teacher, my friend.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">we walk the soul together<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">turning over loyal stones of compassion<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">honest places of depth<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">daily we travel.<o:p></o:p><br /><br /><br /></div>Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-36460584883552795932013-03-09T00:32:00.000-07:002013-03-09T17:36:45.108-07:00healing presence<br /><div class="MsoNormal">Today, I spent a bit of the day amongst a few intuitive healers. Each healer sported a particular personality; each taught by being his true self. The oldest and wisest among them had a presence that could be felt from at least 50 feet away. Perhaps of Percheron descent, he stood tall, white-haired, and weathered like Gandalf or Dumbledore. His aged years meant that he connected seamlessly and more readily than the other teacher healers to us, <i>the student healers</i>. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">He taught the lesson on being present and grounded in this work. Massive hooves planted. His strength and power most obvious, it was the stillness—the calm, quiet, presence that almost felt out of place for one of such stature. I’m not sure how he reigned in such seemingly disparate parts. The royal, stately, Duke, fit for a king, equally comfortable as the gentle soul allowing some weeping into his mane. He immediately honed in on the fact that I wasn’t fully present when I approached him, and turned away mirroring my absence. How did he know that I was holding tension in my gut? How did he tap into all of this without words? His intuitive powers almost seemed harnessed from the magical realm.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">He, the teacher healer, didn’t speak at all. And yet he said so much. <o:p></o:p><br /><br />Perhaps, I ought to hang out with a herd of horses more often.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-50221207270654105802013-03-06T00:24:00.000-07:002013-03-06T00:29:16.235-07:00unseen<br /><div class="MsoNormal">It is the stories that one cannot write that most haunt the mind. The words that will not lend themselves nicely to the page. The ones that refuse to play out into some sort of tightly-knit Aesop’s Fable lesson. The ones that dig heels in and cannot be shaped or sculpted into something creative or beautiful. These images sit like space occupying lesions to borrow the language the Oncologists use.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br /></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Put it down for a while. Leave it here.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">One had no idea something so simple could be so hard.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br /></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Put it down for a while. Take a break from it.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">But, what if no one else will carry it? What if no one else will bear to look into the glow? What if no one else will search for answers where the questions are unseen? <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-54857949634503007402013-02-24T22:12:00.001-07:002013-02-25T10:44:05.416-07:00tethered perspective<br /><div class="MsoNormal">One of the key advantages of being a member of the helping profession is the opportunity afforded to observe closely, the breadth and depth of all sorts of human experience. Like peering at the whale of humanity from the bottom of the ocean, the underbelly swimming above, far off floating silhouette of your long lost boat, the murky dark edges do appear to go on forever.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>I think I get why this perspective could make you feel anxious and sad all at once.<o:p></o:p></i><br /><i><br /></i></div><div class="MsoNormal">Or hanging upside down in the cave of bats while the blood rushes to your head, <i>I think I get why it feels especially difficult to think and your throbbing head feels as if it might explode.</i>&nbsp;In the sacred context of the doctor patient relationship, I often find myself on a journey outside of my own perspective, led around vicariously through dark experiences, by my patients. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Most of the time, I can’t help but come away from this sacred space a little bit transformed. Sitting with wounded people, my own perspective often has to expand to hold the space for things percolating beneath the surface of polite conversation, the place where you’re frightened of the dark, or scared of bears, and the monsters under the bed try to grab your feet when you dive under the covers as the lights go off. I feel privileged every time I step softly into this psychic space with my patients.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The oft cited words of my mentor echo, <i>Your patients will teach you much if you allow the space for it. </i>&nbsp;I remember thinking before graduating that Obi Wan Kenobi was just trying to make me feel more ready for the shift to being a physician. <i>He’s just trying to make me feel better as I’m lambasted with graduation and that overwhelming sense that levels most of us new doctors in a sea of feeling as if we really know absolutely nothing.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br /></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>He’s trying to make me feel better about cutting the educational, umbilical cord.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br /></i></div><div class="MsoNormal">The truth is my patients do teach me much. Every day. They teach with their individual perspectives on their collectively similar tragedies. <i>Everybody bleeds this way, just the same. </i><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br /></i></div><div class="MsoNormal">Sometimes I think doing this helping work is a bit like living a bunch of different lives simultaneously. I walk around with a rolodex of others' experiences in my head. I hear the talk of people sitting around the table, walled in by their own narrow perspective, trapped by assumptions or stories they've told themselves for years. <i>It can't be otherwise. He must not even care.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I realize I'm no different in telling myself stories. But, I get the gift of sitting regularly with the heavyhearted. I get the opportunity of gaining insight by being absent from my own perspective for a while, then returning. I get to be an astronaut drifting in space, looking freshly at the blue and green earth swirls. The Overview Effect its been called. My own story smacks me in the face in a new way. Gifts I didn’t see before stare back at me. Things taken for granted assault me.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br /></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>I didn’t really have it all that bad.</i> <i>In fact, things were mostly, good in my childhood. My life is rich.</i><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">And sometimes the perspective transformation, the blinding re-entry burns a bit more radically and I’m left tumbling my way back into the atmosphere to some sort of spirituality that makes sense of experiences so far from my own. I have to rely on the bells that have stopped jingling from my ankles, praying that the tether to Big Oak Tree on the edge of the forest somehow holds well enough for someone to pull me back and help me land. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-91574052405997599262013-02-18T14:55:00.000-07:002013-02-18T14:56:03.171-07:00weeping at the moon<img alt="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/173944121147733194-746352898950964865?l=pieceofmind-thecharmedlife.blogspot.com" height="1" src="file:///C:/Users/jenn/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.gif" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_1" width="1" /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-K2gafQX_mfQ/USKgDVbXMTI/AAAAAAAAAH4/pSxA4DiIPuY/s1600/birth+of+the+moon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="312" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-K2gafQX_mfQ/USKgDVbXMTI/AAAAAAAAAH4/pSxA4DiIPuY/s400/birth+of+the+moon.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">artwork by Raina Gentry&nbsp;http://www.raintree-studios.com/birthofthemoon.html</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I don’t know why I sit here tears dripping, under the moon. Crickets scratching their legs, the sound of the freeway in the distance. I have no reason to be sad. No badness of a day, no complete and utter failures, nothing went all that wrong, today. In fact, <i>things went</i> <i>mostly right</i>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />I haven’t really thought of my brother in a long time, even thinking of him now, <i>that’s not it.</i> <br /><br />Instead, there’s the cool night air, Seussian silhouettes all around. <br /><br />Looking up into the sky, halo around the moon’s fullness, little dark spots on it’s circle, I feel something, I know not what. And that something feels like sadness. And I have no idea why I’m weeping at the moon.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75" coordsize="21600,21600" o:spt="75" o:preferrelative="t" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" filled="f" stroked="f"> <v:stroke joinstyle="miter"/> <v:formulas> <v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"/> <v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"/> <v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"/> <v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"/> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"/> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"/> <v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"/> <v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"/> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"/> <v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"/> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"/> <v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"/> </v:formulas> <v:path o:extrusionok="f" gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect"/> <o:lock v:ext="edit" aspectratio="t"/></v:shapetype><v:shape id="Picture_x0020_1" o:spid="_x0000_i1025" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/173944121147733194-746352898950964865?l=pieceofmind-thecharmedlife.blogspot.com" style='width:.75pt;height:.75pt;visibility:visible;mso-wrap-style:square'> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\Users\jenn\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image001.gif" o:title="173944121147733194-746352898950964865?l=pieceofmind-thecharmedlife.blogspot"/></v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><img alt="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/173944121147733194-746352898950964865?l=pieceofmind-thecharmedlife.blogspot.com" height="1" src="file:///C:/Users/jenn/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.gif" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_1" width="1" /><!--[endif]--></span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p>&nbsp;<span style="font-family: inherit;">&nbsp;</span></o:p></div>Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-59323679109591791422013-02-16T15:42:00.002-07:002013-02-16T15:43:21.951-07:00cold as it gets<br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>When my soul aches singer-songwriter Patty Griffin often has ways of capturing apt expression of that ache. This song feels about right, now.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">To the end of the earth<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I’ll search for your face<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">For the one who laid all of our beauty to waste<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Threw our hope into heaven<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Our children to the fire<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I am the one who crawled through the wire<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I am the one who crawled through the wire.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">There’s a million sad stories<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">On this side of the road<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Strange how we all just got used to the blood<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Millions of stories that’ll never be told<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Silent and froze in the mud<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Silent and froze in the mud.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I know a cold as cold as it gets<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I know darkness that’s darker than cold<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">A wind that blows as cold as it gets<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Blew out the light of my soul<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Blew out the light of my soul.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I dream in my sleep,&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I dream in my days<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Some sunny street now so far away<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Where up in a window <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">A curtain will sway<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">And you and I’ll meet down below<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">You and I’ll meet down below.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I know a cold as cold as it gets<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I fight a war I may never see won<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I live only to see<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">You live to regret<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Everything that you’ve done<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Everything that you’ve done<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Everything that you’ve done.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><o:p>-Patty Griffin&nbsp;</o:p></div>Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-37383953116821296282013-01-20T23:00:00.001-07:002013-01-20T23:14:19.818-07:00dear front desk girl<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">I wrote this as a student. As a conscientious student, I remember feeling the angst of how annoyed the front desk girls were with me. As weird as it sounds, they were most angered by the students who actually did their homework. Because it demanded time and energy from them. They had to pull the charts. They had to work on Saturdays to help us. The ones who showed up on weekends to research their patient's charts...This was me working out my angst in poem form.&nbsp;</span></i><br /><br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I know it must seem that I’m always at your window <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">waiting <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">to bug you,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">asking for a chart, or even for a stack, <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">or for you to access <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">that all-powerful schedule that reigns over both of our lives. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>my furrowed brow might seem to convey anger. </i><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">in reality,&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I’m concentrating <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">on the next thing <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>Mr. Attending asked me to do, </i><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">after he told me <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">how wrong I was<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">the last time. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">forgetting <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">might suggest <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">that I’m not taking the teaching seriously, enough.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">and sometimes, only sometimes, <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">furrowing my brow <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">making it harder&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">for the tears to stream <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">down my face <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">when I’ve fucked something up,&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">yet again.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I know it must seem <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I’m demanding so much <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">on the days&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">when I come back<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">like some adolescent.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">pulling up to the drive-up <i>In and Out. </i><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I imagine&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">it is rather annoying.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">what now? <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">you must think<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">as I approach for the umpteenth time.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">in reality,&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">some days the demanding weights <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">almost crush.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">world full of Attendings</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">residents</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">patients <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">professors<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">pulling,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">in multiple directions, <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">usurping or contradicting one another.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">never doing enough. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">never learning enough. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">chart note, never quite right enough.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">sometimes, crazy as it is <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I lighten my load<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">creating a delusional reality <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">where<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>I’m not the one being pushed around. </i><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I know it must seem that I’m moody as I stand here<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">waiting.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">in reality, <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I'm pausing, <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">catching my breath<br />as my patient just left.<br />the conversation we had took effort.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">wanting <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">to get it right, <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">to communicate&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">support, <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">to not fall down in a puddle on the floor. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">maintaining, <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">appropriate expressions, <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">did not come easy. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">new to this realm <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">of carrying other people’s burdens,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>I’ve never had to tell someone </i><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">of the cancer <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">found inside the walls of ovaries. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">now I’m standing at this window, <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">resting,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">my soul.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">letting my guard down <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">worrying not <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">about smiling. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I don’t know much, <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">but,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>I have learned that ovarian is a bad one.</i><o:p></o:p></div>Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-80399672140606372122012-10-31T23:23:00.000-07:002012-10-31T23:28:06.323-07:00never met someone like that<br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>I’ve never actually met someone in recovery</i>, he said…</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I’m not sure how one raw statement could capture so much and at the same time embody such haunting emptiness. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Part of me heard. Part of me couldn’t believe. Part of me wanted to weep. Was this hyperbole for emphasis? Hyperbole for blogger’s sake? Some kind of strange juxtaposition to keep me grounded in patient’s reality? I forget too easily. I forget that no one is <i>supposed</i>to get better. &nbsp;I forget that no one is supposed to be in recovery. I forget that no one is supposed to be <i>cured.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">No one in recovery. <i>Oh, yeah. Right.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">And yet, it captured the essential brokenness of the system. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">No one in recovery.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">It took me to the gut wrenching pain of watching an extraordinary boy be told that <i>this</i> diagnosis meant a lifetime of blunted creativity, a lifetime of a nuanced cocktails of Lithium, Seroquel, or some new sexy drug with its very own marketing minions. Walking past the day room parked full of rockers seemingly keeping rhythm with unseen inner worlds. Visiting meant, tolerating scowls from hardened psych nurses thinking that <i>family members might be</i> part of the dysfunction. Visiting meant, suppressed tears held back by hopelessness, seemingly reincarnated as my brother’s mouth ran with drool after the heavy sedations. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">No one in recovery.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">It captured the plight of so many forced to put up with so much, already. &nbsp;The diagnosis morphing into strange stares upon returning to college. &nbsp;The shame and stigma morphing into the court ordered treatments and outrageous removals of human rights hiding behind the hollow legs of patriarchal medicine. <i>The disease that affects your brain must be causing you to not want to take your meds.</i> It can’t be that you want something <i>different</i> because you are an autonomous human being. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">No one in recovery. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">On so many levels it captured the essence of the case of the mental illness of the system. The failed American mental illness system that parades about destroying hope. Swallow the pill. Do not ever quit your meds. Do not question. You have a serious mental illness. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Certainly, no one cured. No one in recovery. <i>No, I’ve never met someone like that. &nbsp;<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div>Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-77853538291603356612012-06-06T23:25:00.000-07:002012-06-06T23:25:51.796-07:00cutting a lineMy brother is a Surveyor. As in cutting lines through the backwoods of VA. No hacking through jungles. No, rather he has a desk job, now. And not Upton Sinclair, though he reads Upton, I'm sure. (most surveyors, don't, FYI, but he is smart). But sometimes he cuts the line. I think that's what they call it, when you go out and hack through the Kudzu, et al. You cut the line.<br /><br />Sometimes I think I'm supposed to cut the line.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /><br /><br />Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-89399545417944554032012-01-24T13:02:00.001-07:002012-01-24T13:10:18.576-07:00No Exit Strategy<br /><div class="MsoNormal">Dear Pristiq,</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I know I shouldn’t blame you that your parents must have named you due to extraordinary proximity or <i>ana-mana-pia </i>to the word <i>prestige</i>. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I get it. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Pharmaceutical company birthed you in some effort to compete with the Wyeth family's Effexor XR.&nbsp;I suppose somebody got paid boo-koo bucks to spin your Robin hood like effort as <i>reversing</i>the stigma of depression. As in not merely helping but even going so far as to impart <i>prestige</i> in a world of mental health stigma. As in one might have prestige <i>being</i> on this drug. <i>As in, look what we’re doing to help the depressed and anxious of the world—altruistic company that we obviously are.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Doing your part, little cash baby—only one hundred fifty dollars a month coming out of that small disability paycheck.&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I shouldn't blame <i>you</i>, that there is no exit strategy.&nbsp;That you only come in unbreakable, extended release tablets with your 11 hour half-life. Ready to ensure yo-yo symptoms in those who try to crawl out of your web with every other day dosing strategies.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>There is no exit strategy.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">But that’s not your fault. You’re just an enteric-coated baby released from the Pfizer mother-ship.&nbsp;I shouldn’t be angry that there is no smaller pill—no dosage available less than the 50 milligram <strike>suicidality inducing</strike> therapeutic dosage. I shouldn’t blame you that your mother tells us that we must taper the dosage to avoid withdrawal—I’m sorry, <i>discontinuation syndrome</i> side effects, when there is <i>nothing</i>smaller to taper to. No smaller pill has even been a twinkle in the mother-ship's eye. And then when the withdrawal effects manifest, pompous arguments can be made about depression relapse. When suicidal thoughts appear, <strike>fear</strike> motivation can be harnessed for further entrapment campaigns.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">No. I shouldn’t blame you. <i>You’re just the greed-powered-wind-up-doll-drug mechanically going through the motions, screwing patients on cue.</i> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">most insincerely,</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">a physician</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-39959359690581068502011-12-02T18:00:00.000-07:002011-12-03T14:33:56.256-07:00thanks Denny<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Everyone needs a Denny. Some character, perhaps a little rough around the edges that introduces you to the idea that, sometimes, Typhoid only disappears with the disappearance of the sewer. Some character that helps you see the reality of small towns laden with bureaucratic, red tape. Some character that tells the truth—raw and painful though it may be to hear that your new employer isn’t actually going to be able to teach you much from his deathbed. Some character that tells you how things are actually done in the real world.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Especially in medicine, everyone needs a Denny.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sometimes that Denny role turns out to be played by a different actor than the one you thought you cast. You know—the mentor&nbsp;who seems polar opposite? It turns out that therein lies the balance for your stage play where other characters foil you and end up teaching you something, precisely, because they aren't like you at all.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Everyone needs a Citadel. A shelter or stronghold to which one goes during battle. A place from whence you retrieve your soul stored under a big rock.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sometimes that Citadel is an old novel from the 1930’s, written about some green doc establishing a medical practice in a coal mining town across the sea. A far away tale of medicine travelling your own soul back to you. An old tale curiously parallel and strangely relevant to your own little world.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br /></div>Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-57653197266374389452011-11-02T14:02:00.000-07:002011-11-02T14:12:02.092-07:00on writing as physician<br /><div class="MsoNormal">Somehow, writing takes on an almost hazardous tone, in the role of physician. HIPAA protects patient confidentiality even down to the seemingly mundane details. Are you scheduled for Wednesday or Thursday? Protected. Are you my patient? Protected. What are you being treated for? Protected. Etc.&nbsp;Sure the goal is to <i>minimize</i>the information leakage. And in the day to day running of a medical practice, you might see Joe Blog’s name on the sign-in sheet above yours because you arrived 30 seconds after him. Some of these security breaches are unavoidable. The point of HIPAA is to minimize them to the extent <i>reasonably</i> possible.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Guarding the sacred space of doctor-patient relationship, HIPAA cozies up, seeking to embody trust. Of course, trust isn’t something easily embodied, especially when it comes to mental health. And of course, HIPAA regulates only one side of the relationship—the physician’s side. It is a somewhat one-sided venture, since as patient, you can share whatever the hell you want about your health with whomever you choose.<i> It’s your business, after all.</i> The spirit of the law is to essentially regulate trust. Of course, information has to be shared sometimes, for insurance purposes, or to foster high quality care, and in a general way it can be shared for educational purposes, as long as it is divorced from any identifiers, with relevant details changed.</div><div class="MsoNormal">But following the spirit of HIPAA is easier said than done. Sometimes it feels paralyzing from the Physician side of things. A significant part of one’s life, one’s being, the core and soul of what one does every day, always needs to be sifted through a HIPAA sieve of perpetual censorship. &nbsp;In constant flux, one vacillates, <i>share this, not that.</i> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br /></i></div><div class="MsoNormal">Complicated by people’s perceptions, falsehood or truth matters not. As patient, you know not that one in four people has a mental illness. You know not that depression is the “common cold” of mental illness. You know not how many people have suicidal thoughts or intense anxiety. You know not that everybody bleeds this way, just the same. To you, these are the intimate details of your story—not humanity’s.&nbsp;And this is how, even amidst mutant sifted details on a blog, you <i>might</i> see yourself in the story. In the composite, with the humanity peering out through the words. <i>Hey that’s me you are talking about.</i> And therein trust gets snuffed out. The sacred space darkens, as it warps and twists into something a bit different.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Even if HIPAA hasn’t been thwarted at all, <i>the fact that you think it might have been</i>, undermines one of the most critical elements of the doctor-patient relationship. Next time, you might struggle to tell what needs telling. Because of a perception—a false one at that.&nbsp;Something uttered might snake its way into the ether regions of <i>your</i> story.&nbsp;Your experience of life. The words said might be lifted from context, or might be misunderstood as some personal message. Across my desk, this thought is sometimes both frightening and inspiring.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I’d love to write more directly about my healed patients. How they don’t really recognize themselves anymore. How so much of the old has slid away. How we’ve avoided mood episodes of deep darkness. Or just how life feels so different gliding through it with a homeopathic Gortex suit. I’d love to emote for hours on just how beautiful a person can be when healing via Tuberculinum, </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Stramonium&nbsp; </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Natrum Mur </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Belladonna &nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Sulphur &nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Sepia &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Ignatia &nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Carcinosinum &nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Thuja&nbsp; </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Staphysagria&nbsp; </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">and Nux Vomica.&nbsp;&nbsp;These remedies and many others, foster an almost nostalgic feel in the prescribing physician. They are like old friends as Margaret Tyler used to refer to them. Even their names roll off the tongue and hang in the air, like the art that they make out of life. I suspect with my going on about remedies, I've waded away from the point. Which is simply that <i>these miracles aren't exactly my stories to tell.</i>&nbsp;Sure, I can tell unidentified snippets and fragments. Sure, I can tell pieces while ever conscious of my pet snake, HIPAA. And truth is, y<i>ou probably won't believe me, anyhow, dear reader.</i> For the stories almost sound made up. Hyperbolic. Ridiculously exaggerated. As Tim O'Brien once wrote, <i>Fiction is often more honest than the truth, and the truth often rings false--</i>something to that affect.<i>&nbsp;&nbsp;</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">In this case, the facts seem false. Such as the fact that somehow Patient C can’t remember the time when she didn’t have Problem X. All my life, she says in the intake. And there it is gone. Almost insulting. Can she really have had that symptom gone away in a few months with a few sugar pellets under tongue? <i>I don’t think so.</i> Can he really be feeling that much better? <i>You must be exaggerating, Jenn.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Except that I try quite hard not to exaggerate. To be accurate. To understate. I lean so hard into that wind of transparency and attempted honesty that sometimes I think I might fall over. One of my mentors says I’m too honest.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">And this puts things in a quandary when it comes to writing, in this role, as I see it. The intersection of HIPAA, transparency, and trust unfolds. I am left to struggle with the balance: how to reach toward the catharsis of writing. How to share the powerfully inspiring stories that remind me of the joys of being a physician, yet protect the sacred space of doctor patient relationship. Above all, I struggle in holding the sacred trust tightly enough so as to not drop it, yet loosely enough so that it doesn’t wrap around and strangle the very relationship it is supposed to protect. Easier said than done.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div>Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-77387193016741707052011-10-06T16:25:00.000-07:002011-11-02T14:13:05.705-07:00ode to ignatia<br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>Ignatia amara is the name of a homeopathic remedy often given to those that grieve. I wrote this piece a while back as a student… My apologies to those that have read this before.</i><br /><br />Oh healer of closet weeping, <br />bulging doors<br />holding at bay suppressed avalanches<br />issuing forth<br />at inopportune moments <br />burying recipients in old sorrows.<br /><br />Shaking trees of endless anguish, <br />rooted deep in the dry, crystallized earth<br />shattering time forever.<br /><br />Oh Sire of desired loneliness,<br />choking back pain <br />pretending ease of speech <br />while bearing apple-sized lumps in throat. <br /><br />Cloaker of sadness heavy and long,<br />Oh that You should be needless<br />disappointment ailing none<br />death<br />mere figment in the minds of men.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img alt="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/173944121147733194-6852034327457701359?l=pieceofmind-thecharmedlife.blogspot.com" height="1" src="file:///C:/Users/jenn/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.gif" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_1" width="1" /></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-37016079923210124012011-09-16T16:57:00.000-07:002011-09-16T17:06:44.879-07:00milesIt was the middle name that he dutifully carried like a good son for 22 years. Not an easy task when the namesake you bear lived life as mythical character, as in Herculean sized standards<i>. </i>Named for Dad's mentor--a bald, little spitfire of a guy wielding Bible verses on street corners, holding a small college together by the seams, inspiring many even into his 80th year.&nbsp;The shoes were definitely big.<br /><br />We needed for him to be epic. To back up the carrying on of the family name after a decidedly long line of X chromosomes. The even longer line of five older siblings claiming niches in life complicated matters for my brother.&nbsp;He needed to be epic <i>and</i>&nbsp;distinct. We needed a knight.<br /><br />Did our needs and expectations somehow contribute to the creation of the epic adventures? To the creation of this Bipolar Disease as foe? No. But sometimes my mind wanders there. To the place where guilt and shame and blame throttle you and wrestle you to the ground.<br /><br />In particular, I wonder sometimes at how mania made him larger than life. How the mania granted the opportunity to be epic. Grandiose. <i>O Fortuna</i>. It was the mania that birthed the Knight, or the Phantom of the Opera, or the Prophet, or Jason Bourne and his identity crisis. It was the mania that made him invisible as he danced around the block on the run from the government conspiracy.<br /><br />The Knight.<br /><br />I'm not sure he ever knew that the Latin word for Knight is Miles.<br /><br />And he'll never know that my medical practice names him as it treats mental health patients.<br /><br />Miles.<br /><br />His namesake. Favored piece on the chess board, L mover, plunderer of Queens and Kings alike. Good at chess, because he knew how to use the knight to such advantage. And because he studied to the point of obsession.<br /><br />Miles. Suggestive of a journey. Travels. Epic. Knight. Brother.<br /><br />What's in a name?<br /><br />A memory. History. The boy that never ages finally reaching knighthood.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2EetsdYiobM/TnPkU0x9TNI/AAAAAAAAAHo/juEuso-zFiA/s1600/chessknights.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="274" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2EetsdYiobM/TnPkU0x9TNI/AAAAAAAAAHo/juEuso-zFiA/s320/chessknights.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-19339814884903184662011-08-15T16:02:00.004-07:002011-08-15T20:19:46.076-07:00how the story goes<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I spend a lot of time hearing stories. Leaning back in my chair, I listen for clues of emotive content steeping beneath the surface--the&nbsp;song beneath the song. Waiting for the pieces that make sense of it all. The pieces that tie all the lines on the face together, wrinkling seamlessly into one another. The pieces that make my patient’s choice seem, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the most logical thing of all to do.</i> The point in the story, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">where I think I might have done the same thing,</i> responded in some similar way, that place where I’m caught up in the moment of the story and thoughts of what-to-have-for-dinner, or if-I’ll-make-it-to-the-bank-before-closing, recede into the background. The place where I stop having to say, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tell me more</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">about that,</i> because the story spills out like the yolk of an egg, my patient and I seemingly second string teammates on the sideline, watching the game. Almost as if the story breathing a life of its own, flows like current toward the falls. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is the place, I intuitively struggle towards. The place where all the psychologists say good blending occurs and one manages to catch understanding. For me the moment is about finding the features that fit an appropriate homeopathic medicine.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But I’d be amiss to say that the moment is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">only</i> about finding the most appropriate medicine.&nbsp;In many ways, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the moment is part of the medicine.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Telling your story is powerful. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Most of my patients tell me so and mental health literature bears this idea out. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Many of them tell me, <em>I've never told anyone this... </em>Much of the time, they feel better just telling the story out loud. If the story is particularly dark or messy, the telling of it seems to be even more valuable. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Indeed, telling your story is powerful.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A good friend of mine recently wrote on her blog about the act of writing, itself. Wondering aloud on the feed, she asked, <em>&nbsp;why do I &nbsp;write, anyway? </em>Not ready to quit her day job, and not really wanting to she&nbsp;blogs her own unique story. She doesn't think she's all that good at writing. Incidentally, she is--but that isn't why her story&nbsp;is so powerful.&nbsp;I think her story is&nbsp;powerful precisely because she writes to sort out the messiness&nbsp;of life on the page.&nbsp;To process honestly, sometimes painfully,&nbsp;the details of a struggling daughter or an elderly, Alzheimer toting adult&nbsp;with erased memories. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">James Pennebaker wrote a book entitled, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>Opening Up: the Healing Power of Confiding in Others</u></i>. In it he discusses research demonstrating that talking about your problems—or not talking about them as the case may be—can have profound effects on your physical health. That’s right—physical health. According to Pennebaker, talking, even writing&nbsp;about our problems, our struggles, our traumas <em>heals us</em>.&nbsp; And conversely, not talking about our junk harms—not merely psychologically—but physically. Of course, we know it's all connected, anyway. Chronic inhibition and suppression of our emotions and feelings, in particular anger, leads to increased risk of all sorts of physical diseases—heart attacks, hypertension, cardiovascular problems, asthma, diabetes, and cancer. &nbsp;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">For some of us, letting go and telling our story is more difficult. Parading&nbsp;our shadowy sides&nbsp;scares us.&nbsp;Climbing into the boat and letting the current take us places, makes us feel vulnerable. What if my friends think I’m complaining? What if I’m labeled “whiny?” What if they think I have a mental illness? What if my children&nbsp;don’t like who I really am?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And so we bind ourselves up. Thinking somehow, that we are protecting ourselves from the inevitable isolation of rejection. Telling ourselves that it’s the good, Christian thing to do. Telling ourselves we’re becoming better people by hiding our struggles, our griefs, the badness of our story wrought with flaws. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The truth is we do manage to protect ourselves. We do manage to cut ourselves off from venues of possible rejection. We do manage to protect ourselves from something that might get out of control--something that might take on a life of its own--sticky, messy,&nbsp;and difficult. In not&nbsp;sharing our story, we effectively cut ourselves off from the larger communal story, with its unique power to transform and shape our own story into something more. And that's how the story goes.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div>Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-424473688585138092011-08-04T01:23:00.006-07:002011-08-14T21:32:08.835-07:00dear mental illness<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I don’t need you</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">to help me be smart</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">or creative, thank you.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I don’t need you </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ensuring that people</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">treat me </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>and my kind</em></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">any differently than they already do.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">your stigma carries enough</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">shit </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">on its own, thank you.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ve had to battle</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">uphill for decades.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">with families</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">abandoning </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">well enough on their own</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">without</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">your damn stigma </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">pushing further,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">after learning </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">of habits </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">living under bridges and what not.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I don’t need you </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">guaranteeing</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">people </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">assume </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">violence, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">or that I </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">push a shopping cart, full of haphazard piles of random conspiracy laden stuff, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">my M.O. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I don’t need you </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">telling your classmates </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">at community college</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">that </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’m not smart enough to finish anything.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">assumptions happen anyhow</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">without your damn influence.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I struggle enough</span><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;">trying to be normal </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">without instructor's help, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">or extra time</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">to make it through my 3 classes</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>on my own,</em></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">tutors smutors,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">only make for more-what’s-up-with-him-attention? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">that I don't need,&nbsp;ghostwriter.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I can do this.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">without your damn stigma.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">take your </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">false pity</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">elsewhere.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I may preach</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">on the street </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">of hell</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">fire </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">and brimstone</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">but</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">maybe I’m just trying to survive like anybody else.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">they, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">might expect me ready </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">to shoot up </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">youth in Norway or Tuscon.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">maybe,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’m dangerous</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">and</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">turning <em>my</em> apartment complex</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">into a luxury condos for high flalutin college students</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">with rich dads or moms</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">is obviously</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">a grand idea.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">but</span><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;">i must say,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">its different when you’re the one left</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">moving &nbsp;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">to another part of town</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">for the umpteenth time.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">because</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>you, </em></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>aren’t good enough</em></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">for borrowing</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">that cup of sugar for that gluten-free birthday cake.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div>Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-77068256256043240882011-07-28T14:44:00.001-07:002011-07-29T11:02:43.052-07:00on superheroes and villainsSometimes I feel caught between two worlds. Stranger to both. I think I missed the memo from Madeline about how best to wrinkle between worlds. I suppose not being sucked into either vortex could be advantageous. Namely, the advantage of perspective on both. <br /><br />To hear the naturopathic community and all its appendages, drugs are mostly evil. <em>Look at how those Kryptonite laden Pharmaceutical companies are in bed with Lois Lane, MD!</em> Existing to torment individuals on the planet, these toxic poisoning agents of some Lex Luther character in the sky, bring down the Clark Kents of this world, which conveniently happens to be an herb-toting, birkenstocked, crunchy doctor. <i>Treat the cause, the root of the problem. We like roots and all in naturopathic medicine.</i><br /><br />To hear the allopathic community and some of its quackwatch appendages, the naturopathic medicines I prescribe daily are either placebo or toxic agents bordering on&nbsp;the realm of negligence and my <i>practice of medicine and admiration of the genius of Hahnemann harbors some similarity to following a cult leader. Hahnemann and his minions were some crusading characters insanely bent on--Like cures Like fighting the "dark aged" Regulars.&nbsp;</i><br /><br />And yet Naturopathic world misses the point. Fish the telephone pole out of your own eye. Isn't Clark Kent, ND in bed with Nutraceutical Company? How is that relevantly different from Lois and Pharma? Can't we admit that vaccines are rather naturopathic and save lives? Can't we acknowledge that Allopathic medicine does certain things like Emergency Medicine,&nbsp;amazingly well? <br /><br />And yet Allopathic world also misses the point. Fish the telephone pole out of your own eye. Can't you see how the history of human kind is all about the history of human mistakes and the process of detecting and overcoming those errors in thinking? Isn't it possible that in waging this war against those that think differently from you, you've missed the point? If you aim to squelch the position that balances out your own, you burn the bridge to future growth and banish yourself to an island of your own idiosyncratic thinking?<br /><br />Can't both worlds ingest a dose of humility?&nbsp;<em>And, no I don't mean a homeopathic dose. </em>Can't both acknowlege that extremism and polarization help no-one?<br /><br />Unfortunately,&nbsp;all of medicine merely seems to mimic the culture at large. We live in culture of extremist sound bites. A culture that needs the boxing ring to keep the viewers interested.&nbsp;<em>How will we ever get our message into the limelight without an evil villain character?</em> <em>Who is the foil?</em> And so we polarize. We spin. We push the gap between two ideals wider and wider. In the name of spin or viewers or "ideals" we feature our opponent's ideal in a crossbow on a website or pronounce a democracy focused camp, a "Hitler Youth Camp." Really? Accuracy doesn't seem to matter so much as capturing that emotionally reactive&nbsp;content, placing <em>our message</em> center stage at Carnegie Hall.<br /><br />In the meantime, outside polarized TV world, boys sucked into the story,&nbsp;show up with guns at grocery stores in Tuscon or youth camps in Norway, and blow up evil villain characters for ideals.<br /><br />Taking our lessons from culture at large, maybe its time&nbsp;for medicine to back away from extremist-superhero-naturo-or-allo positions, acknowledging that at least some portion might be spin designed to harness emotionally reactive content.&nbsp;Our voice as medical moderates&nbsp;might not be as glamorous, might not&nbsp;take sweeps week, or&nbsp;win us roles on Jerry Springer Live,&nbsp;but it will be heroic nonetheless. For it will be our voice acknowledging&nbsp;that many of our fiercest idealistic battles&nbsp;are not waged in order to contend with some evil villain force outside ourselves. Rather, those battles are often waged when we can't aknowledge&nbsp; the villain within who&nbsp;gathers strength precisely as we feed our superhero counterpart.Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-71674312885514200092011-07-17T14:44:00.000-07:002011-07-17T14:44:37.377-07:00dallas divide<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jSciARGMd8o/TiNUfLDFVMI/AAAAAAAAAGs/4WO8rUW9z_Q/s1600/IMG_0002+edit+color.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" m$="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jSciARGMd8o/TiNUfLDFVMI/AAAAAAAAAGs/4WO8rUW9z_Q/s320/IMG_0002+edit+color.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vPnfozdlrZM/TiNUvasu5FI/AAAAAAAAAGw/ScFkmYAj4WM/s1600/IMG_0125+edit+kyle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" m$="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vPnfozdlrZM/TiNUvasu5FI/AAAAAAAAAGw/ScFkmYAj4WM/s320/IMG_0125+edit+kyle.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fhlA_wm4e_0/TiNV9yCIY_I/AAAAAAAAAG0/H2jpddu_JTM/s1600/IMG_9901edit+water.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" m$="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fhlA_wm4e_0/TiNV9yCIY_I/AAAAAAAAAG0/H2jpddu_JTM/s320/IMG_9901edit+water.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SK0rRWGffsM/TiNWRcSlcYI/AAAAAAAAAG4/pMYZxL6So4w/s1600/IMG_0580+edit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" m$="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SK0rRWGffsM/TiNWRcSlcYI/AAAAAAAAAG4/pMYZxL6So4w/s320/IMG_0580+edit.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dj55MeJdHfQ/TiNWzn8xgDI/AAAAAAAAAG8/jnqi2g4avX0/s1600/IMG_9937.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" m$="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dj55MeJdHfQ/TiNWzn8xgDI/AAAAAAAAAG8/jnqi2g4avX0/s320/IMG_9937.JPG" width="213" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-662rwCoCY-E/TiNXqFngTrI/AAAAAAAAAHA/m3axOsUz-dI/s1600/IMG_9907edit+water+divide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" m$="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-662rwCoCY-E/TiNXqFngTrI/AAAAAAAAAHA/m3axOsUz-dI/s320/IMG_9907edit+water+divide.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-70425481958840878342011-07-14T00:30:00.003-07:002011-07-15T15:58:29.429-07:00NAMI<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I attended my first NAMI meeting tonight. I have no idea why I haven't been to a meeting until now. Per the confidentiality agreement I’m not allowed to talk about stated meeting. But I suppose I can talk about NAMI in general and my own personal response.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">NAMI is a beautiful organization. The acronym stands for National Alliance&nbsp;on Mental Illness. They support people and families with mental illness. Aiming to reduce the stigma of mental illness, they structure support in a gazillion&nbsp;different ways, perhaps too many to count. Support groups, educational classes for families, community wide fund raisers to increase awareness, and more&nbsp;are all part of the NAMI package.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Of course, in going to such a meeting I couldn’t help but ruminate&nbsp;on my brother. I couldn’t help but dwell on the fact that I found a beautiful organization, six years too late. I couldn’t help but feel guilty for not finding&nbsp;these people--committed to plugging some of the holes in the treatment and service to the mentally ill after his death.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But that is not the point of NAMI. NAMI is not so much about wallowing in your guilt over what you should have done, or would have done, or maybe could have done to help someone. NAMI is about&nbsp;holding all of these should of, would of, and could ofs and deciding to walk forward anyways.&nbsp;Its about recognizing your own limitations, your own humanity, your own shortcomings, and still getting up in the morning&nbsp;to put your shoes on.&nbsp;And so I shall.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In case you are interested in checking NAMI out, here's the national website.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://nami.org/">http://nami.org/</a></div>Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-23016833364356036502011-07-08T22:43:00.001-07:002011-07-08T22:48:22.219-07:00camp soul<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mt Sneffles peaks from behind the swaying evergreens. Tall and majestic, the contrast between Sneffles and our “lowly” valley camp spot on the edge of the meadow gives you the sense of a lower elevation than the known 9000 feet of the Dallas Divide. But, don’t let the weakened contrast and Sneffles less-than-impressive name fool you. Sneffles still boasts 14,000 feet and patches of snow in July.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Somehow, the aging Boss Hog (aka our embarrassingly-loud-beeper-in-reverse-circa-1993 conversion van) made it all the way up the lonely, dirt road to our ideal camp spot. We ventured all this way to strip away some of the clutter from our lives, making more space for the soul. Envisioning more soul in the everyday experience. Playing trolls on a little two logged bridge. Claiming portions of creek as six or eight or ten-year old real estate play properties. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This is my house from this tree to that rock.</i> Wading bare footed&nbsp;in barely melted&nbsp;mountain water til&nbsp;tiny fish startle you into racing your crocs for fun.&nbsp;Puffing dandelion seeds into the breezy light air. Finally getting a fire going after a long rain with wet, still-green wood. Hiking trails through a Yarnell sized botanical playground. Leading pet Llamas around Teepees and meadows yellow.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When it comes down to it, the clutter strips more readily and more drastically if you’re a kid. Fully engaging the rocks and caterpillars and matted, dreadlocked Llamas seems to become more difficult as we age. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Even so, up here among the clouds and flowers there is time to think. Time to ponder. Time to reconnect with all things natural, which few of us do enough. The machinery of life and concrete jungles begin to slip away. Stephen Harrod Buhner describes our disconnect from nature as western post-enlightenment thinkers in his book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lost Language of Plants</i>:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Once the Universe becomes a machine, no longer alive, once human beings are defined as the only intelligent life-form, a unique kind of isolation enters human lives, a kind of loneliness that is unprecedented in the history of human habitation on earth. It is a source of many of the emotional pathologies people struggle with. In addition, people begin to judge themselves internally, to identify their level of value according to how much or how well they think. Any internal expressions, perceptions, or thoughts that come from older epistemologies—that are based primarily on feeling or intuition or aliveness in the Universe—they label as unscientific, irrational, unreasoning, or illogical. Such thoughts and perceptions, it is assumed, have less value, are based on improper assumptions about the nature of reality, and are therefore something to be discounted, dismissed, degraded. This dynamic has become so ingrained that people routinely monitor and censor perceptions that are contrary to universe-as-machine. And so people cut themselves off from the Universe in which they live; they become passengers on a ball of semimolten rock hurtling through the Universe. They internally denigrate and deny their most basic experiences of the livingness of the world in which they live, their connection to it, and the importance of that connection. The interior wound…</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And so I sit watching, pondering and healing for a time. Struggling to reconnect as I disconnect from from the hamster wheel. Meditating on the biophilia infused&nbsp;words of Buhner and learning large from three small teachers that have no idea what soul is, yet live with soul so much of the time. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br /></div>Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-27890453218661079202011-06-25T13:23:00.000-07:002011-06-25T13:23:22.489-07:00little renaissance<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I have my eyes on a particular piece of art for my waiting room. Local Arizona artist, all the right colors oozing into one another, layers of mindful matter depicted on canvas. The piece moves me like art is supposed to. Unfortunately, financial responsibilities compel me to wait for more stable times. Massive piece, really. Able to loom large over my little white bookshelf, both in size and creative depth. Somehow, the artist managed to nestle the calm look in a beautiful face while a storm of thoughts swirl around. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The piece has spawned my own creativity in thinking of ways to acquire it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">No, I haven’t thought of robbing a bank or anything remotely like that. Rather, I’ve imagined calling up the artist and offering a trade.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>Hmmm. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Homeopathic Mental health services for a piece of creative genius art. Hmmm.</i> Perhaps, a little problematic. Might be insulting to suggest a trade given the services I provide. Sticky. Essentially, I’d be suggesting some sort of mental health diagnosis to someone I’ve <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">never even met.</i> Not necessarily the way to win friends and influence people, as far as I can tell.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But, statistically, chancing such an offer—the odds wouldn’t be all that bad. Artist. Creative type. Clearly and most extraordinarily gifted. Kay Redfield J has published volumes of research demonstrating the more frequent occurrence of mood disorders in the creative population. I could play the odds. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And I can attest to the connection, anecdotally, with my brother. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Art moved and breathed in him. Spilled out on the page in plays on words, or high, emotive notes on the trumpet, or sexy chess moves spun like silk from turning over Bobby Fischer’s classic moves in a book. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>Creativity often turns out to be part of the Bipolar package. At times, I’ve even wondered if my brother’s Bipolar Disorder was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the very thing that</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">made him so extraordinarily creative. </i>It was as if the gifts were on Speed. Mr. Renaissance Man.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>He wasn’t merely a trumpet player. He had to be the high school trumpet player invited to make a guest appearance with the Navy Band. He wasn’t merely an artist, he had to be one to capture that look in the eyes that narrows the gap between art and real world emotions on paper.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">All things artistic stung for a while after his death. For a time, it seemed as if the grave froze up his artistic gifts alongside his body. My own creativity somehow wound up buried in the adjacent plot. Too painful to dig up out of the earth. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Recently, as the salve of time soothes my soul, I’m moving back toward all things artistic. My own little Renaissance. I’m angling toward the creative arts in whatever ways I feel like: music, writing, dance, painting furniture, or hanging wall art in a medical office. Sometimes even the practice of medicine itself demands a little creativity when interviewing a patient struggling to open up. In some small way, the world feels righted in these small expressions of who I am as creative being. I guess I shouldn’t register surprise at the healing found in precisely the same spot as much of the pain and the grief. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It is rather homeopathic, wouldn’t you say?</i> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">P.S. Check out this local Arizona resource that utilizes artistic expression therapeutically for mental illness: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://www.artawakenings.org/">http://www.artawakenings.org/</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br /></div>Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-87094650663875430932011-06-17T15:10:00.000-07:002011-06-17T15:14:15.161-07:00tilting at giants<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A knight stands atop my desk, reminding of days long passed. Rescued from the corner shelf of a thrift store, hidden behind an old tire, missing shield and sword, he gazes through visor slits toward my maroon leather chairs, meant for keeping patients comfortable during long homeopathic intakes. But the knight’s purpose has little to do with entertaining my patients during long intakes.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The knight is there for me. The doctor. The naturopathic physician that would rush headstrong, into charging at windmills or oppressors of my cause, my all-important ever-so-bombastic quest.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Honor, duty, and the dangers of romantic idealism sometimes swirl around on this medical path. Tempted at every turn to fix your own insecurities by embellishing that savior complex, you have to fight not to spin the yarn that all the world needs is for you to show up in your suit of armor, sword in tow and knock that evil disease off its horse. (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">brilliant, shining knight that you obviously are.) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Yes, you can heal people. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And yet, not everyone.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Yes, you might even cure some.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: right 6.5in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And yet, not all. Fighting for your cause, you </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">must remember that those visor slits create blind spots. That visor might be nothing but blind spots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>Therefore, occasionally, it might be a good idea to get off your high horse, remove the cardboard head gear and look around. You just might discover, like Quijote, a few of those giants conjured themselves out of the reflection bouncing off your own romantic delusion of yourself. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br /></div>Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5279965730809022040.post-74284934938558141592011-06-12T12:14:00.000-07:002011-06-13T10:34:28.637-07:00authenticity<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I grew up in a little, plastic bubble of a culture. A place where judgments sometimes fell from the sky, pounding imperfections and flaws and even illnesses into the dry earth. Life in this bubble was often based upon how things appeared to be and not necessarily how they actually were. People spent a great deal of time hiding behind plastic smiles and falsities, and words were spread around like jam on bread in order to cloak the taste of mold or hint of staleness.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I've interacted with plasticity for a long time.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sometime in the past few years, perhaps in med school, perhaps influenced by a mentor bent upon transparency in medicine, I began shifting away from plastic-bubble world. Sure, my soul screamed out at the fakeness long before the authenticity lessons—the unnaturalness of the lipstick smiles, even as the eyes seemed to say something else, the pretensions of perfection, the pressure to not talk about flaws or mental illnesses but rather to package it all up in hair-sprayed, feathered wings and blue, eye-shadowed personas. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bubble world didn’t have all that much space for authenticity; there was barely enough space for breathing oxygen. Rather than speaking honestly, much time was devoted to guessing at the meaning hidden behind words behind mouths lip synching things. No one really said what was actually meant. Generally, real meaning was buried somewhere underneath layers of niceties and hidden agendas. You had to read between the lines. You learned the art of suppression. How to do mental gymnastics in order to hint at what you meant, so that someone might get what you said, so that you could possibly get angry, in an-ever-so-loving sort of way,&nbsp;at their insensitivity. <em>How dare they be so rude?</em></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Perhaps, I shouldn’t be surprised that it was psychosis that squeezed my own brother’s authenticity to the surface in bubble world. Floridly out of his mind, he could freely pick the neurotic neighbor’s flowers or just park on the road in front of&nbsp;neurotic&nbsp;neighbor's&nbsp;house. He could say anything, be anyone, do anything for a time in a culture designed to squelch thinking outside the bubble. Seen from&nbsp;a certain perspective, his psychosis temporarily solved a few problems. Of course it also created a few problems of its own, too.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I think of my brother now as I step more fully into the role of doctor and while attempting once again to sort out authenticity. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>I’m not sure how to be real <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">as a doctor</i>. I’m still figuring out the details of being a physician in the first place. I don’t know how to communicate competence and the fact that I’m still learning at the same time. I don’t feel especially doctoral. I feel uncomfortable not knowing exactly where the balance point lies between being present and yet professional. And my feeble&nbsp;attempts to balance atop this surfboard make me feel as if I’m pretending; playing some character in a TV drama, waiting for the moment when Meredith, the narrator’s voice over from the beginning, suddenly cues<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>back in and the plot ties itself neatly together, while the emotive music carries us through the teary-eyed part to the credits.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;">People want to feel confident that doctors have answers. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Somehow it cuts into our collective need to feel safe, to feel taken care of, to feel like all is well in the ocean of our lives. As if somehow all our sharking worries can dry up because somebody knows what to do about our cancer or our bipolar disorder or our Lou Gehrig’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>The universe has been preserved. The beach is safe. The bubble has not popped.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But, if I’m authentic, I might have to say that I don’t have all the answers. Sometimes, I might even have to admit that I don’t have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">any</i> answers. That the Tsunami might still crash on your shoreline carrying you out to sea <em>and I cannot prevent it.</em></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And you, holding your schizoaffective son in your arms, might crumple into a heap in the corner of my office.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">All of these things make it difficult to be authentic, to surf the waves of both compassionate ache for your struggles in tension with&nbsp;one's human capacity for emotions, or&nbsp;irritability when appointments cancel themselves&nbsp;at the last minute. Or when compelled&nbsp;to be both real and honest about your prognosis and yet gentle and caring and humane at the same time. And so sometimes we wind up in a doctor bubble world of our own, struggling to&nbsp;find our way out, to connect with you, our patient, in a real human way. We might seem cold, or aloof, or distant, as if we have some sort of superiority god-complex; but in reality, we're often&nbsp;merely struggling epically to hold the complexity of our own humanity in such a way that won’t frighten you <em>that we aren’t, in fact, god-like.</em></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br /></div></div>Dr. Jenn Bothamnoreply@blogger.com1